Many of you would think this is a foolish question, but I shall ask it regardless.

Once a summoning ritual to call upon magickal creatures is performed, how can you tell if something comes? Faeries, Dragons, sylphs and the likes cannot be seen, so how do you know if they answered your summons? Surely it's not as simple as visualizing them appear, right? Do they force an image of themselves into your mind, or do they require an inanimate object to make their presence know?

It varies with the creature summoned. The Fae often don't like being summoned. With Dragon, I feel a presence and I reach out to it with my mind. By making telepathic contact, I do receive a mental image, but this is not always the case. With Demons I feel them about me and communicate via dowsing. It really depends.